Introduction
There is considerable trepidation over security of Nigerians and their votes in the April 2, 9 and 16 general elections. The electoral commission and President Goodluck Jonathan have at different times reassured Nigerians of free, fair and credible elections and to punish electoral offenders but security forces have, like previous cases in 2003 and 2007, been unable to address many politically motivated killings in parts of the country and bring to book perpetrators of the spate of bombings in Abuja and parts of the country, the episodic killings that have become a permanent feature in Jos, confrontations and threats to life across parts of the North east by the Boko Haram sect, prolong militancy and renewed threats of bombings by the notorious Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) in the Niger Delta, brutalization of opposition parties by party thugs and suspected vigilantes, emergence of private state security establishments by governors and the spate of inter-party fracas fueled by political intolerance in many states.
Continuing challenges to security of the elections
The Presidency through the National Security Adviser and Inspector General of Police is collaborating with Nigeria’s electoral commission to establish Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) to foster effective policing at national, state and local government levels. With barely 3 weeks to elections the committee appears unprepared, in the absence of clear security strategy for systematic deployment, and may be forced to resort to the inefficient pattern of random deployment where 2 police officers are deployed per polling unit irrespective of security peculiarities and threats of violence in the states.
The National Security Adviser and Inspector General of Police are key players in the security of Nigerians and their votes in the elections. The two officers are, though appointees of Mr. President, primarily responsible for the wellbeing of Nigerians and security of the country. To achieve this, they must ensure the presence of motivated and capable security force to gather intelligence and respond to threats to security of lives and property and law and order at all times. A situation where the two officials, by omission, abdicates these responsibilities for political assignments is major threat to security for the elections by inspiring resort to self help security measures by candidates in the elections and emergence of vigilantism among groups and associations to protect their votes.
The turnout of large registrants for the last exercise to register voters is a concrete demonstration by Nigerians to vote during the April elections. Many Nigerians are determined, in addition, to protect their mandate and ensure their votes count. While this is a positive development, experience from previous elections show that many other interested stakeholder will be out on election days for reasons that are antithetical to popular demand for free and fair elections. Inadequate security cover under the situation could quite easily inflame the already tense situation and violent breakouts. The risk of breakdown of law and order is higher and demand urgent clearly defined security strategies in Oyo, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Ogun, Imo, Benue, Plateau, Nassarawa, Kano, where tension has been northward in response to political intolerance, struggle between politicians and their godfathers, rising vigilantism, brutalization and muzzling of free speech by private and secret forces, youth indoctrination and instrumentalisation of almajiris in parts of the North.
Every Nigerian is entitled to adequate protection and security of property as primary responsibility of the federal government and this right cannot be dispensed indiscriminately to favor any category of public officials especially in election year where ‘do or die’ attitude of political parties and candidates raise further security risks. It is therefore worrisome for key security agencies to ignore reports of threats to life and public order from opposition parties and candidates. The murder of ANPP governorship candidates for Borno state by yet-to-be-arrested persons and attempt to the live of the Senatorial aspirant of ACN, General Lawrence Onoja (retired) and murder of his personal assistant Mr. Emmanuel last Friday (18th March 2011) in Otukpo by suspected PDP thugs is a pointer to the veracity of these threats and point to the urgent need for speedy response to restrain oppositions and their candidates from self-help security measures.
Security provision for the elections requires masterful planning and cooperation among state and non-state actors as champions of free and fair elections. There are several civil society-led interventions to train police officers, develop and modify code of conduct for police and security officials on election duties, training of election observers to monitor conduct of police but a lot more is required to ensure an impartial security asset is in place for the April elections. There is a recognition that complicity of security officials in violence and malpractices during previous elections is not strictly for lack of training or code of conduct for security officers on election duties. Neither for lack of monitoring infrastructures. Many local and international observer groups in the 2003 and 2007 elections attribute to security complicity to impunity and absence of clear accountability mechanism.
Options for urgent response
Cooperation between civil society groups and leadership of major security agencies on board the ICCES offers a major asset to addressing some of the immediate security threats on the way of April elections. The leadership of ICCES and officials of INEC should embark on regular information sharing with CSO ahead of the elections. CSOs have established a Nigerian Election Situation Room comprised of NGOs and coalitions with broad membership and experience of election programming and which among other things shall run a 24-hour ‘monitoring room’ on April 2, 9 and 16 to monitor elections. Members of the Monitoring Room plan to deploy election observers across the country. The essence of the monitoring room therefore is to have regular monitoring reports to inform regular updates by CSOs on the elections. Several complimentary efforts also exist on social networks including facebook and tweeters and a robust interactive conflict monitoring site under the name reclaimnaija by youth organizations and community based associations to facilitate reporting and information flow between during the elections. These assets offer crucial support to INEC and security agencies. The NSA and IGP should therefore engage civil society organizations, media and other actors behind these interventions to find ways of appropriating them.
In addition INEC and security agencies under the ICCES should:
1. Embark on urgent security assessment to identify hotspots and deploy security personnel appropriately.
2. Volunteer senior security officials as part of CSO election situation room on the election days.
3. Hold regular briefings with leadership of major CSO coalitions on security and policing for the elections.
4. Publish telephone numbers, hotlines and key contact persons that can be reached during election days and guidelines for filing reports.
5. Establish and communicate accountability measures for security officials on elections and publish guidelines for accessing and invoking it.
6. The NSA an IGP should issue regular calls for respect of the code of conduct for security officials on election duties and state their preparedness to investigate and prosecute all cases of complicity brought against them.
This briefing is a weekly production of ‘CSO Working Party on Security and the 2011 Elections’.
The underlisted are member organizations:
1. Africa Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, Abuja
2. Alliance for Credible Elections, Abuja
3. Borno Coalition for Democracy and Progress, Maiduguri
4. Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education, Kano
5. CLEEN Foundation, Abuja
6. Civil Resources Development and Documentation Centre (CIRRDOC)
7. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Abuja
8. Institute for Community Policing, Port Harcourt
9. League of Human Rights, Jos
10. National Human Rights Commission
11. Network of National Human Rights Institute – West Africa
12. Open Society Initiative West Africa (OSIWA)
13. Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI)
14. Transition Monitoring Group (TMG)